


A Week to Woo

by Trillsabells



Series: The Door Opened [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, Infidelity, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-15
Updated: 2014-09-15
Packaged: 2018-02-17 13:21:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2311103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trillsabells/pseuds/Trillsabells
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Interesting, it turned out, wasn’t the half of it.</p>
<p>“I slept with Sherlock.”</p>
<p>He stared down at his nearly full pint – his first of the evening – and decided he needed more. One pint was definitely not going to be enough for this conversation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Week to Woo

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thanks to Jupiter_Ash for her amazing betaing in the face of a complete lack of understanding of commas.

Message from John Watson

Got time for a drink tonight?

 

Lestrade looked up from the phone to the mountain of paperwork in front of him and did some quick calculations.

 

Message to John Watson

Probably shouldn’t but definitely up for it. Sherlock’s idea of a stag night was a washout then?

 

It couldn’t have been more than thirty seconds between the first text and his response, yet he managed to read two witness reports before his phone binged with John’s reply.

 

Message from John Watson

Dog and Kettle at 8?

 

Long delay and not actually answering the question, good sign right there. He picked up his next report with a smile. Should be an interesting night then.

Interesting, it turned out, wasn’t the half of it.

“I slept with Sherlock.”

He stared down at his nearly full pint – his first of the evening – and decided he needed more. One pint was definitely not going to be enough for this conversation. 

“Hold on,” he said, holding up one finger.

He quickly downed about half the glass, wiped one hand across his mouth, then said,

“Fucking hell, John.”

John stared moodily into his own, untouched drink.

“I know,” John said. “Except, I don’t know. I just…”

John shrugged helplessly. 

“You cheated on Mary with Sherlock?”

That wasn’t the John Watson he knew.

John winced but didn’t reply.

“What the hell happened?”

“It was my stag night,” John said. “We were both completely drunk and it just sort of… happened.”

“Just sort of happened.”

_“Honestly, officer, we were having this argument and then it just sort of happened.” “I didn’t mean to nick it, it just sort of happened.” “I would never hurt her, it just sort of happened.” “I’m so sorry, Greg, I can’t explain it, it just sort of happened.”_

“These things don’t ‘just sort of happen’.”

“I honestly don’t know how it happened,” said John. “I was so drunk I don’t even remember it.”

He stiffened instantly. God, was John trying to say… Did Sherlock take advantage? Sherlock wouldn’t, would he? That wasn’t the Sherlock he knew. Christ, did he actually know either of them then?

“All I know,” John continued, “is that the two of us went out for my stag night and the next thing I know I’m waking up, naked, in Sherlock’s bed, next to him, with him also naked.”

Okay, first things first he really didn’t need the image of a naked Sherlock in his head. That one time at Baker Street with the towel slippage was already one too many.

However second things second;

“Are you sure you had sex?” he asked. “Just because you were naked doesn’t mean there’s not some other possible explanation-“

“No,” said John, cutting across firmly, “trust me, I ran through all the possibilities and we definitely had sex. Besides, even if we didn’t that night, it doesn’t matter now.”

“What do you mean,” he said, voice flat, “it doesn’t matter now?” 

“Well…”

 

Shitting bloody buggerfuck, John thought as he stared at the back of the head of the naked man beside him. The naked Sherlock in fact. Who he had had sex with. Who, it seemed, had been inside him.

Fucking hell in a hole and a sodding hand-basket.

What was he going to do? What had he done? What the fucking shitting arse had they bloody-

Sherlock jolted upwards like he had been zapped with a defibrillator, and flipped over so hard the bed bounced, the headboard knocking against the wall. 

Oh-

With Sherlock staring at him so intensely, eyes flaying him open as they explored his face, he-

 

“Flaying you open?”

John blinked and looked back at him, away from whatever little world the story had been inhabiting. A world which seemed to be located somewhere over Greg’s left shoulder.

“What?”

“His eyes flayed you open?”

He raised his eyebrows and grinned as John started to frame a reply but just ended up gaping like a goldfish.

At least if John was using the sort of florid language he usually reserved for his blog, Greg could be reassured that he wasn’t about to hear an accusation towards Sherlock. That said, he wouldn’t put it past Sherlock to literally flay someone or something open, and if there was a way to do it with only his eyes, Sherlock would find it.

“Oh piss off,” John finally settled on, at last picking up his pint. “Do you want to hear this or not?”

“’Course I do,” he said, picking up his own pint. He gave it a speculative look before deciding he had been right about there not being enough alcohol to deal with this and quickly downed the rest of it. “But if you’re going to be romantic,” he said once he’d finished it, “I’ll need another pint. You still on that one?” 

John nodded and took a sip of his nearly full drink. 

“I’ll get you another. You may not need it, but I will.”

When he returned a couple of minutes later, John barely waited for him to put the glasses down before beginning again.

 

With Sherlock staring at him so intensely all thought vanished. He couldn’t speak, couldn’t move, was frozen to the spot, caught in Sherlock’s gaze. That was when Sherlock kissed him.

 

Greg choked as the beer hit the wrong part of his throat and he had to spend a moment clearing the burning out of his lungs. John just rolled his shoulders in a slow half shrug and took another sip of beer.

 

He wished he could say he reacted instinctively, that he opened his mouth to Sherlock’s automatically, or that his hands came up to hold Sherlock’s head of their own accord. Certainly the movement had a strange familiarity to it. But he knew what he was doing as he leaned back and let Sherlock push him into the mattress. He was acutely aware that this was Sherlock, not Mary. He knew it was wrong and odd, and the stubble was strange against his skin, and yet he pulled at Sherlock’s hair to bring him closer.

 

So that was what John meant by ‘didn’t matter now’. Could be worse he supposed. Still, poor Mary.

“Jesus, John.”

“I know,” said John.

John’s gaze was directed away but didn’t seem to be avoiding his eye. Instead he looked as though he was rapidly disappearing back into the dream world of flaying eyes and stubble burn.

“Good kisser?” he said.

John tilted his glass, looking thoughtful. “Not the best,” he said, taking a sip. “But enthusiastic. Like he really wanted me to _know_ he was kissing me.”

“And that was… good?”

John looked down at his glass. “I _knew_ , that’s for sure.”

 

Minutes – hours maybe – passed before Sherlock pulled back and gave him a smirk so dirty it was probably illegal.

“Why don’t you take a shower,” Sherlock said, “and I’ll go sort out breakfast.”

As if this was a perfectly normal way to wake up and everything was fine between them.

Sherlock rolled off the bed and strode away, still stark bollock naked.

Lying on the bed he stared straight up at the ceiling and wondered if this was what going insane felt like.

What the hell was he going to do? What was he going to say to Mary? And as the sound of pans and cutlery being moved about started to fill the flat, he couldn’t help wondering whether Sherlock was going to burn himself.

When it came down to it the best thing he could do was just follow Sherlock’s advice. So, wincing a little, he gathered up as many of his clothes as he could find – his trousers, his pants and one solitary sock – and went to have a shower.

The trouble was that once he was in the shower, letting the spray sooth away his pounding headache and rinse away all the evidence, he couldn’t stop thinking about it. All his memories from the night before were hazy; a jumble of shapes and blurs that refused to form any kind of coherent series of events. He still couldn’t quite believe it had happened. How had it happened? What had it been like? Those two questions passed through his mind just as he reached for a nearby bottle and was simultaneously hit with a nose full of Sherlock’s bodywash.

All of a sudden his brain was filled with images of what it might have been like, fantasies he had never considered before.

 

Putting down his glass Greg raised his eyebrows.

 

Fantasies he had only ever considered before in the dark of night and never really that seriously. The sort of fantasies that made his knees go weak. He had to brace a hand against the wall to keep upright. God, the number of things going through his mind at that moment. One of them had to be what happened the night before out of sheer probability.

He had to rest his other hand against the wall, close his eyes and will himself not to lose control. He was just reaching for the temperature dial when he heard the bathroom door open.

“You’re taking your time.”

It should not be possible for those words to sound as seductive as they did in that moment. In fact, he was fairly certain it wasn’t actually possible and he was genuinely losing his mind.

“Sorry,” he said, “I’ll er try not to use all the hot water.”

Cold water was definitely needed.

There was a waft of air as the shower curtain was pulled back.

“I’ve got a better idea.”

He turned in surprise, fully intending to ask what the hell Sherlock thought he was playing at and tell him to leave immediately, but his foot slipped on the corner of the bathmat and he ended up falling straight into Sherlock’s arms instead.

 

“Like a sodding fairytale princess,” John said, taking a sip of his pint.

“Your words not mine, mate.”

 

“Do you need some help?” Sherlock said – no rumbled. Purred. Used his deep seductive voice like a weapon while climbing into the tub, still holding him tight.

“No,” he said, pushing away from Sherlock’s naked… damp… chest… and um grabbing the shower curtain for balance instead. “I’m fine. I’ll be done in a minute.”

“Promise?” Sherlock’s electric gaze swept over his whole body before focusing rather lower down than he would have preferred. “Oh John. Were you starting without me?”

He managed an incredibly well thought out comeback of “Nnnergh,” before Sherlock met his eyes again, grinned like the Cheshire cat, and then sank to his knees. He could only stare as Sherlock leaned forward, tongue coming out to lick his lips, before-

 

“Stop!” he said, holding out his hands to try and form some physical barrier against the sudden influx of bad mental images. “I do not need to hear every detail.”

Oh god, the picture was seeping through. Sherlock on his knees looking up with that sparkle in his eyes he sometimes got from a particularly inexplicable case. Those round plush lips circling- no, no, no, no, no.

He grabbed his beer and took a long drink. Oh that was so wrong, and there was no enough alcohol in this pub to scrape it from his memory.

“So,” said John, drawing out the o as he knocked his glass against the wooden table, swishing the liquid left within, “you don’t want to hear about the blowjob.”

Oh dear god.

“No,” he said with more certainty than he’d made with his wedding vows.

“Or how after that he pushed me up against the wall and-“

“No, absolutely not. Jesus, John.”

Anything else, think of anything else

John looked down at his pint. The git was actually smirking a little. The cheating git. Oh yes, that was a good idea, something else to think about: Mary.

“Drunken sex is one thing,” he said, “but that definitely did not ‘just happen’.”

“I know,” said John.

“You’re getting married on Saturday.”

“I know.”

“You are a complete bastard.”

“I know.”

There was another pause for much needed drinking. Except… well… despite that initial terrible mental image, the more he thought about it – and god he hated that he was thinking about this now – he just couldn’t see it. I mean, Sherlock? Calculating machine, human nature ignorant, ‘what is this thing humans call love’ Sherlock?

“How was it though?”

Because it had to be asked, it honestly did.

“Four for style,” John answered instantly, “eight for effort, eleven for… precision.”

“Precision?”

“God, yeah.”

“Lucky you,” he said, adding, “you bastard,” for clarity. "I mean, Jesus, John."

"You've said that," John said, taking a sip of his beer.

"It's worth mentioning again. What the hell were you thinking?"

John paused, glass raised before adding tentatively. "Oh god, yes, more?"

Zooming back into the territory of too much information.

"John-"

"I know, I know," John said, putting his pint glass down and running his now free hand through his hair. "But it was just... Sherlock, you know? And everything was just so..."

"Precise?" he said, regretting it immediately.

Don't think about it, don't think about it.

"Well yeah, the blowjob was precise, but the bit against the wall was less precise and more force-"

"Oh dear god!" he said, covering his ears to keep the exploded debris of his brain from slipping out.

"Sorry," said John, sounding genuinely abashed as if he hadn't realised that regaling your friend with details of your sex life with another of his friends - if he could call Sherlock a friend, on his side at least - might not be what was wanted. "I just meant that I was caught up in it all and then suddenly I’m sitting there eating crispy bacon and caramelised eggs and it just starts to dawn on me what I’ve just done. That it’s not a drunken mistake, just something that happened on the stag night, like winding up tied to a lamppost with a traffic cone on your head and a light-bulb somewhere private.”

He was not going to ask how John knew that story. Nearly freezing his bollocks off and not being able to walk properly down the aisle had not exactly been the most auspicious beginning to a marriage. But then it hadn't exactly gone all uphill from there. And at least Anne hadn’t slept with her maid of honour the week before the wedding. Just the PE teacher twenty years in…

“Not anymore." John continued, jolting him out of his own problems. "I cheated on Mary. And not just with anyone, but with Sherlock, my fucking best friend. Who I…” John suddenly fell silent although his mouth kept moving as if he was trying to say something but couldn’t physically give the words sound. “I mean,” John went on as if there had been no pause, “almost as much as, maybe more than, I mean it’s Sherlock for Christ’s sake. Sherlock.” John hammed the point home with an index finger to the table. “Sher-lock.”

“It’s Sherlock,” he said, trying to help out, “I get it.”

This was apparently the wrong thing to do as John just groaned and dropped his head into his hands.

When it came to problems John was apparently determined to take the biscuit. Greg’s balls may have nearly frozen off during his stag do, but at least his head had been on straight. At least once the alcohol was out of it.

“So what did you do?” he asked.

“What do you think I did,” John said, muffled by his hands before raising his head again. “The only sensible adult thing to do was to talk about what had happened, air our feelings, and just sort it all out in a calm and rational manner.”

 

Glancing up from the egg he was hacking in half, he caught Sherlock’s eye over the top of Sherlock’s coffee and received a slow flirtatious smile in return.

He had to say something.

“I have to go.”

 

His head hit his palm.

“Yeah,” said John, “and saying it with a mouth full of egg didn’t help either.”

 

Sherlock’s brow furrowed. “Pardon?”

He hastily swallowed and got to his feet. “I, er, I have to go. Now. Um. Things to do, you know.”

“Yes, of course,” said Sherlock, standing up as well. “I’ll see you… soon?”

“Well the rehearsal’s on Friday,” he said, wondering if he sounded as hysterical as he felt.

Somehow Sherlock’s brow furrowed even more. “Friday.”

“Right, yes,” he said, looking around for his coat and failing to find it. “I’ll… go.”

He strategically retreated-

 

If John heard his snort of laughter he didn’t show any sign of having done so.

 

-down the staircase, where he found his coat, and out the door. He was barely ten steps down Baker Street before he realised he hadn’t so much as avoided the conversation as changed the recipient. He needed to tell Mary.

“Marry. I- Mary, you know. Mary. Hi Mary! So… right, Mary. Um, listen. Last night, with Sherlock, something happened. I’m not sure how to say this because I’m not sure how it happened, but it seems that, whilst drunk, Sherlock and I slept together. Um, had sex. With each other. I am so sorry, but I had to tell you. To be honest I was so drunk I don’t even remember it. Except that this morning, when we woke up, it sort of happened again. Mary, I’m sorry, it was wrong and it should never have happened. I don’t know what to say to you, but I’m so so sorry.”

 

After finishing the inelegant, but admittedly fairly to the point speech, John stared into his beer for so long Greg was concerned John had fallen asleep.

“So?” he said after almost a minute of silence. “How did she take it?”

“She didn’t.”

 

“Mary?” he called as he shut the door and dropped his keys into the pot.

“Oh hello,” came Mary’s voice from the direction of the kitchen. “I wondered if I was going to see you at all today. Late one then?”

Taking a deep breath and steeling himself he walked into the kitchen. Mary had her head buried in the cupboard under the sink.

“You could say that,” he said. “In fact there’s something-“

As she backed out of the cupboard and stood up, the sight of her full outfit took the words right out of his mouth.

“Ooh, you look rough,” she said as if there was nothing extraordinary about wearing a pink feather boa around the house.

“What are you wearing?”

She grinned. “Do you like it? It’s for my hen do,” she said, fluffing up the feathers. “Jeanette managed to achieve an actual miracle and got two Saturdays off work in a row, so we’re celebrating by starting at lunch and continuing till late. Ooh and,” she put on a pink headband which had two pink sparkly balls attached to it by two long springs, “tah dah! Jeanette gave it to me, but one of the deedle-boppers broke off, so I fixed it with superglue. Do you think it works?

She shook her head causing the balls to bounce from side to side.

“Anyway,” she said, “I meant to leave five minutes ago, so I’ll have to love you and leave you,” she pressed a kiss to his cheek. “Bye, love, don’t wait up and take it easy. You look like you’ve been through the wringer.”

And with that she was gone, leaving him gaping at where her feathers and deedle-boppers had previously been.

 

“Wait, wait, wait,” he said, scrounging up a memory of what had been said before the image of sensible Mary in a pink feather boa and deedle-boppers took over his brain. “This was Saturday?”

“Yes,” said John, as if that was self-explanatory.

A tone he seemed to have picked up from Sherlock.

“Today is Wednesday.”

“Yes.”

Apparently John had also learnt Sherlock’s ‘Dear God, why must I forever be doomed to be surrounded by dullards who can only speak the obvious’ tone.

“If you didn’t feel the need to talk this through with me on Saturday,” he said, “what the hell has happened in the last four days?”

That expression was not Sherlock’s. Sherlock could never manage to look embarrassed, pained and put out all at the same time.”

“Well…”

 

He stared into the freezer, but he had no greater clue of what to eat than when he looked five minutes ago. Or five minutes before that. He had been unable to settle all day, listlessly varying between planning speeches for either Mary or Sherlock and trying to take his mind off the whole thing. But there was nothing on TV and no book could hold his attention long enough. Now he couldn’t even scrape enough brain power together to sort out dinner.

He was just debating whether to give up completely and order takeaway, or to give the freezer one last chance, when the doorbell went.

Thankful for the distraction – quite frankly if it was Jehovah’s Witnesses he would happily take one of their leaflets in exchange for some advice – he almost ran across the house to answer the door.

It was Sherlock. With takeaway. 

He was almost convinced it was a dream.

“We need to talk.”

Or perhaps a nightmare.

He opened his mouth to speak, but Sherlock pushed past before he could get anything out. That was probably a good thing considering he had no idea what he was going to say.

Sherlock stood in the hallway looking around with his usual disdainful expression of ‘You gave up Baker Street for _this._ ’. The Expression was one of the main reasons most of the wedding planning that involved Sherlock – which had gradually evolved to include absolutely everything – had taken place at Baker Street.

“I’ll get plates,” he said, chivvying Sherlock into the kitchen slash dining room.

For all that it was Sherlock’s idea that they talked, the git seemed determined to torture him with anticipation. Nothing was said as they served up the food. Nothing as he poured out water for the two of them – although there was an amused smirk as if agreeing with the wisdom of his choice. Nothing as they argued over the last porkball; which meant it was less of an argument and more of a Sherlock pinching the last one just as he was reaching for it, as usual.

He was half tempted to reach across the table and shake Sherlock and demand that they start talking now dammit. Then he remembered he didn’t want the conversation either, so he kept silent.

It was quite nice actually. Companionable, just like it used to be. Back in the days when they lived together whole evenings could go by in complete silence as they sat side by side. This was like that. Nothing awkward just-

 

“John, you’re killing me here. Please for the love of god say one of you started talking at some point.”

“I was just getting to that.”

 

As soon as they were both finished, Sherlock put down his chopsticks and said,

“You didn’t tell Mary about last night.”

He couldn’t help but look around at the room for clues as to how Sherlock could have known that. The lack of broken crockery? The fact that Mary’s things were still there? The fact that he was still there?

“There was no time,” he said, turning back to Sherlock who was watching him like a suspect under interrogation. “But I will. I have to.”

“Would you like our sexual relationship to continue?”

 

Greg had to bite his lip to stop himself laughing. This was turning into the weirdest soap opera in history. Much more entertaining than EastEnders – Anne’s old favourite.

“Blunt, isn’t he?” he said

John rolled his eyes. “I’m just glad I wasn’t eating or drinking anything at the time. I probably would have choked.”

 

John gaped at Sherlock.

“I, er-“

“Because I would. Very much so.”

“Um good?” Good? What? “No, er, I didn’t-“

“Only I’ve never really seen myself as someone’s mistress.”

He felt like the conversation was very quickly slipping from his grasp.

“Right?”

“And as open as Mary has been about us continuing our current relationship, I doubt she would be so much in favour if the arrangement suddenly included regular sexual intercourse between you and me.”

“No,” he said, desperately trying to work out where this was all going.

“The most logical thing to do would be to ask you to choose between Mary and myself.”

His stomach turned to lead, plummeted downwards and made itself comfortable somewhere around shoe level.

“But that would be rather unfair.”

“Yes,” he said with the sort of certainty he usually saved for emergency medical procedure. “Yes, it would be.”

“After all,” Sherlock continued, “you’ve been in a romantic relationship with Mary for the last twelve months, but up until last night have only experienced a largely platonic relationship with me.”

What? ‘Largely’ platonic? No, wait, what?

“Therefore, it’s only fair if you have access to the full evidence on both sides, so I am going to provide that to you.”

What?

“I admit the time constraints are a little restrictive, but you know me,” the smirk was so filthy it looked as though it had dug its way to Amsterdam and back without stopping for a shower or a teeth clean or whatever it was smirks did to get clean but which this smirk certainly hadn’t done.

 

He resisted the urge to move John’s pint out of reach and started to wonder how many John had had before coming out. That said, given John’s blog and the earlier flaying, perhaps this was just John’s natural state when it came to Sherlock. A person might be forgiven for thinking his friend was the tiniest bit smitten.

Oh god, this was not going to end well.

 

“Always up for a challenge,” Sherlock said.

“Sherlock,” John said, trying to rescue some sense from all the insanity that had just been said. “What exactly are you saying?”

“You’re getting married in a week,” Sherlock said, as a matter of fact. “Therefore, I have seven days to woo you.”

 

“I mean,” said John, grabbing his glass, but only, it seemed, for extra emphasis rather than to actually drink it, “what the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Definitely not going to end well

 

“Woo me?”

“Starting with,” he gestured to the empty takeaway boxes. “Just like we used to. We could watch a film as well if you like.”

“This is,” he waved his fork, “you ‘wooing’ me?”

“It’s a start,” said Sherlock.

He wasn’t sure if it was a threat or a promise.

 

“I know I should have thrown him out on his ear,” said John, staring into the depths of his pint. “Seven days before my wedding. What was I meant to do with something like that?”

“What did you do?” he said, knowing the answer.

“We watched _Dr. No_.”

Bingo! How could anyone say no to Sherlock in that mood?

“And then?”

“Afterwards he said he was going to go. I walked him to the door, he gave me a quick peck on the mouth, smiled at me like, I dunno, a giddy teenager or something, then he left.

“Jesus,” he said, leaning back in his seat.

What a mess. Why did Sherlock have to decide he was head over heels for John one week before John’s wedding? There was bad timing and then there was Sherlock. Then again.

“So what are you thinking?” he said. “I mean about Sherlock ‘wooing’ you?”

John shrugged, looking for all the world like a man desperately claiming his innocence but unable to come up with a viable alibi.

“It’s just so unreal,” he said. “In one of our first conversations he said he was married to his work. It’s like,” he waved his hands around his head as if to indicate confusion, but had apparently forgotten he was still holding his pint glass so got momentarily distracted by the beer splashing onto the floor next to him. “Shit.”

He started looking around, presumably for something to clean it up with.

“John, leave it.”

“Right,” John said, giving the puddle – that was quickly soaking into the already stained woodwork – a doubtful look. “Yeah, what was I saying?”

“Sherlock had just left after your takeaway and film night,” he said, reasoning that perhaps he would get more out of John – and the floor would suffer less damage – if he stuck to facts.

“Right, yeah, well Mary wasn’t back yet, so I went to bed,” John said. “In fact, she didn’t get back until noon the next day, and then she was far too hungover for me to talk to her.”

 

The door shut with a bang and a groan of agony.

“Shh.”

“Mary?” he called.

“Shh,” came the sharp response.

A few moments later Mary staggered into the kitchen. Her hair was damp as if she had come straight from the shower, her makeup was streaked as if she hadn’t taken it off before getting into said shower, and she was still wearing the same outfit as the day before except one of her deedle-boppers was broken and her feather boa had changed colour to blue. Or perhaps, thinking about it, it was someone else’s feather boa. He vaguely hoped it was someone from her party and she hadn’t been out robbing feather boa shops.

“John,” she said, her voice low, “you love me, don’t you?”

Oh god, she knew. How did she know? Did someone tell her? Did she come home early and see Sherlock kiss him last night? Could she just tell?

“Yes,” he said hastily. “Of course I do?”

She winced at his words.

“Then please,” she said, “I beg of you, kill me now.”

He knew she was upset, but that was a bit of an overreaction.

“What?”

“Please, John,” she said, collapsing into a chair and clutching at her head. “You’d be putting me out of my misery.”

Oh.

“You’re hungover.”

“I should bloody well hope so,” she said, before wincing again.

He let out a sigh of relief, scrubbed a hand across his face, then pulled her to her feet.

“Come on,” he said.

She groaned. “Don’t wanna.”

“Let’s get you some aspirin and get you to bed.”

“Okay,” she said, walking with him. “Maybe I do wanna.”

He sat her on the bed then went to fetch aspirin and a glass of water. Then when he got back, had to prop her up again to give them to her.

“Oh,” she said, looking at his offering and beaming up at him. “You do love me.”

He, he thought as she took the tablets then shuffled under the covers, was the shittiest person on the planet. Here was this amazing, kind, gentle, loving woman and he was sleeping around behind her back.

 

“I am such a bastard.”

“I did tell you.”

A cheating stinking bastard who should not be putting Mary through all of this.

“Except I’ve never been a bastard before,” John said, jabbing at a beer mat with his finger. “I’ve never cheated on any of my girlfriends. It’s not something I do.”

He attempted to convey ‘Look at all the evidence to the contrary’ with a single eyebrow raise, but he was probably not sober enough to pull it off. Either that or John was too drunk to notice it.

“So I decided I was going to talk to Sherlock about everything and get him to drop this ridiculous wooing nonsense.”

“Good plan,” he said, mentally calculating how badly it must have gone wrong given that all of this had happened on Sunday and it was now Wednesday.

“Except then he texted me asking me to meet him at Angelo’s.”

Ah, that badly.

Bastard.

“Angelo’s is a restaurant round the corner from Baker Street. He uses it for stake-outs. So I thought he must have a case. And that’s got to be a good thing, right? A distraction, something to take his mind off everything. And Mary didn’t mind, so I went.”

“Right,” he said, nodding. “And at what point did you realise it was a date?”

 

It wasn’t the candle that gave him the clue, that he was used to by now, and he had been too busy looking out the window for their suspect to pay attention to Angelo’s winks and innuendo. It was the wine that gave it away. And the food. Specifically that Sherlock was both drinking and eating with every sign of enjoyment. And if that wasn’t enough,

“Here,” said Sherlock, piercing a piece of ravioli with a fork and, ignoring his gape, offering it up. “Try this, it’s delicious.”

He let it hang there for a long moment before asking,

“Is this a date?”

“Obviously,” said Sherlock with a small frown.

He opened his mouth to tell Sherlock that they absolutely could not be going on dates together, but as soon as he did Sherlock shoved the ravioli inside.

“As I said,” Sherlock said, as John furiously chewed. “I’m giving you the opportunity to see me in a different light. Delicious. See,” Sherlock grinned and pierced a second piece of ravioli, “I told you so.”

Then Sherlock licked his lips and bit down onto the piece of ravioli in a way that made John’s mouth go dry, which was not a good thing when he was trying to eat.

He was halfway through his coughing fit before he realised Sherlock had sidled up close to him on the window seat and was rubbing his back. Or rather, tentatively caressing his back. A realisation that only made him cough even more.

“John,” Sherlock said and, oh god, the voice was not helping. “You’re overthinking this. You’re panicking.”

“I’m engaged,” he managed to croak out.

“Until you have all the facts, how can you be certain you want to marry her?”

“I love her.”

“Do you love me?”

 

There ought to be bloody awards for not reaching across the table and shaking your friend when he falls silent after repeating a question like that. He should get a gold medal for every one of those six – count ‘em _six_ – minutes he sat and watched John stare at the table. Then he should get a honking great trophy for John eventually continuing with,

 

Sherlock didn’t move away, but slid his plate closer and continued eating.

“Relax,” said Sherlock. “It’s just dinner.”

 

“And was it?” he asked, because he had to ask something other than, WHY DIDN’T YOU ANSWER HIS QUESTION AND WHAT WOULD YOUR ANSWER BE, YOU INFURIATING PLONKER? “Just dinner?”

“We didn’t have sex if that’s what you’re asking,” said John, fists against his temples, gaze fixed gloomily into the dregs of the pint glass.

“Good to know.”

“We chatted. We laughed, a lot. Sherlock deduced people in the restaurant. I told him he was amazing. He- I can’t even remember what he said, but it was the perfect set up, so I made a joke and next thing I know we’re flirting with each other and then,” John swallowed, “he, um, licked the gelato off his spoon and there was a little drip. “John rested a finger up against the corner of his mouth. “And I…”

What?

“Well I…”

_What?_

“I didn’t.”

Didn’t do what?

“But… god.”

Oh Jesus.

“Then his foot…”

Fucking hell.

“And I… I had just kind of forgotten about the whole ‘wooing’ mission, I was just having a good time.”

“Yeah,” he said, leaning over and claiming John’s second pint for himself. “Sounds like you had a really nice date.”

“God, it really was,” said John, somehow finding a tone halfway between wistful and really fucking heartbroken. “It’s like what he was saying actually makes a whole lot of sense. I’d never thought about him in this way before, you know, dates and romance and shit. And it gets you thinking; why hasn’t it always been this way? I mean,” John looked up and fixed him with the sort of interrogative stare that wouldn’t have looked alien on Sherlock’s face, “why?”

It took almost a full minute of silence before he realised.

“Are you really asking?”

“Yeah.”

“But that’s obvious,” he said. “Because you weren’t gay and he wasn’t interested.”

Because Sherlock hadn’t been. The mad genius didn’t work like that, or didn’t used to. Sherlock may have been possessive, protective and stared at John in the sort of way that had half the constables starting a book on when Sherlock and John would get together, and the other half genuinely concerned that Sherlock was going to bop John on the head one night and eat him whole; but romance? If anyone had suggested Sherlock might want a romantic relationship with John he was fairly certain Sherlock would have just blinked at them in shock. Just like John was doing now.

“Quite frankly, if the two of you had sorted this out years ago it would have been a hell of a lot simpler,” he said, on a roll now. “There wouldn’t be anyone else getting hurt.”

He was almost glad to see John wince at the reference to Mary; not forgotten her completely then.

“Except you didn’t so here we are. Worst bloody timing since Napoleon decided winter would be a good time to see the sights of Russia, but here we are. Something made the little switch in Sherlock’s head go from off to on and now he is interested. Which makes the next question, are you gay now, mate?”

John stared, wide eyed.

This time he let the silence go past a minute. Then two minutes. It was fast getting to three before John finally managed the comeback of,

“I’m getting married on Saturday.”

Which sort of answered the question really.

God, Sherlock you idiot. Why couldn’t you have flicked that switch before John had managed to find a different switch? Or rather someone else with their switch on. Or maybe John had one switch labelled Sherlock in one direction and Mary in the other and-

He looked down at the empty glasses littering the table. Maybe it was time to switch to soft drinks, he was starting to get as florid as John. 

Then again, maybe it was time to switch to the hard stuff.

If Anne had found the PE teacher the week before his wedding, what would he have done? It would have been better, surely. Months of wedding prep down the drain was better than twenty years of half-life and kids stuck in the middle. Maybe? That probably wouldn’t have made him feel better if it had happened at the time. It was a shitty situation from any angle.

“So what happened on the rest of the date?” he asked, concentrating on someone else’s soap opera rather than his own.

“Nothing,” said John with a shrug. “He went his way, I went mine. No kiss goodnight.” The last bit was said in a completely flat tone.

“And Mary?”

“Out like a light by the time I got home. I wanted to tell her, but, well, it’s not the kind of thing you wake people up for.”

“No, that ‘kind of thing’ is best tackled after a good night’s sleep.”

“Yeah, except come morning we’ve both got work and it’s a rush because neither of us made our lunches the night before and we’ve both got extra stuff to do to get ready for being away on our honeymoon. By the time we actually had a quiet moment to talk to each other it wasn’t exactly a good time.”

 

“So how was Sherlock?” Mary asked, waving to the car behind them as she forced her way out of the junction.

“I slept with him.”

Mary turned to him in shock so suddenly she yanked the steering wheel round sending them careening onto the pavement, knocking over a pushchair on their way through a café window, crushing several pensioners eating breakfast.

Actually maybe now wasn’t the best time to have that conversation.

“Fine,” he said, as Mary came to a gentle stop at a set of traffic lights. “You know, his usual self.”

“That bad, eh?” she said with a grin. “Finally recovered from your Friday night exertions?”

“Er,” he said as flashes of Saturday morning’s exertions flicked through his mind. “Some lingering after effects.”

“Aw,” Mary almost squeaked. “Poor diddums. Still, nothing a good case can’t fix. So, how did last night go? Solve anything?”

“Bit of a dead end, really.”

“Oh,” she shot him a quick sympathetic grimace before turning her attention back to the slow moving traffic ahead of them. “I’m sorry. Although it’s probably a good thing. Don’t want you bringing a murder case to the wedding.”

 

“Save that for your wedding to Sherlock.”

If he didn’t know there was nothing left in John’s glass he could have sworn the noise John made was him choking. Had he actually choked on his own tongue? Did people really do that?

“Oh come on,” he said. “Tell me you can’t picture Sherlock’s wedding. The florist would be secretly plotting to poison the organist. The vicar would be blackmailing the choir, and everyone would get a pair of handcuffs to take home as a wedding favour.”

John just stared at him. No, in fact, just stared at a point just to the left of his shoulder. He quickly turned to see what was so interesting. Had Sherlock walked in? Nope. Nothing. When he turned back John appeared to be slightly flushed.

“You okay, mate?”

“Yes,” said John, blinking and looking back at him. “Just, um, handcu- fine. I’m fine.”

“You sure?”

“Yep. And anyway, Sherlock can plan a perfectly normal wedding; he did mine after all. There are…” John gave a vague wave of his hands, “serviettes and everything.”

“Okay,” he said, not convinced. “So Sherlock is capable of a normal wedding. Good to know.”

John merely dignified that with a raised eyebrow.

Time to get back to the story.

“So you were in the car with Mary.”

“You know, that’s not really important,” John said.

“Apart from the fact that you still haven’t told her.”

“Yeah, apart from that,” said John, digging into his back pocket. “The important bit,” John pulled out a phone, “was this.”

 

He had recently resurrected his habit, from when he had been living at Baker Street, of putting his phone on silent and checking his messages during breaks. Before Sherlock had… left he had had to keep it silent so he could actually get some work done rather than be disturbed every few seconds by the slightest thought that went through Sherlock’s head. While Sherlock had been away, there had been no point in keeping it silent as no one ever called him.

Lately it was back to normal service, except this time it wasn’t experiments or cases he needed to avoid but wedding plans. After one day in which the exact specifications of the bridesmaid dresses – and the bridesmaids – was detailed to him in ninety-six texts in the space of just one hour he had gone back to old habits and now waited till lunch to read through them all. Or, more likely, skimmed and deleted them.

Today there was only one message; a voicemail.

 

John pressed something on the mobile, set it on the table and slid it towards him. After a couple of seconds of static a violin started to play.

 

It started slow. Not quite sad, but low and almost dull. Except Sherlock playing his violin – and it had to be Sherlock, who else could it be? – could never be dull. But there was something about the tune that made him acutely aware that it was one violin playing. Was there something missing? Was this one half of a duet he knew but couldn’t recognise? It sounded nothing like anything he had ever heard before. Then, slowly at first, the tune began to change. No other instruments joined the recording, but somehow the other half, the missing half, started to join in. It wasn’t perfect at first, a few odd notes that didn’t quite mesh together, but as time went on the two parts started to intertwine. The tune became lighter, more pleasant. He found himself smiling without realising it, even huffing a half laugh at some of the more exciting bit. The tune sparkled and ran away with itself. Except something else was creeping in; a hint of darkness. Low dangerous notes started to appear. The main tune seemed to become faster and more triumphant in response, but the darkness was still there, coming back here, and there. Elements of discord started to reappear as the music rose and rose, his heartbeat rising with it, building to a crescendo that was magnificent and terrible at the same time and then-

It stopped, and after a couple of beats of silence restarted in a devastating reprise of the early part of the piece, but slower and in a minor key. The notes lingered, draining the hope and happiness from the piece. It started to shade back into the loneliness of the opening, but this time there were hints of danger. He felt like his heart was in his throat and almost cried aloud as he started to catch the tiniest snapshots of the second part of the tune again. It built and built until, suddenly, it launched into the full tune again. Except this time it wasn’t triumphant, this time it was tainted by the sad melody and something else, notes that raised the hair on the back of his neck every time they appeared, twisting themselves around the rest of the music. It was working towards another crescendo, the something else heating his insides as the music took to its heights, making it hard to breathe. It was a masterpiece, magnificent, building towards an uproarious ending that would sear itself unto the minds of all who heard it except…

Except somehow it didn’t. Somehow it softened, became gentle and before he could catch up with the sudden change it swept off into one long lingering note of promise and uncertainty and then simply… stopped.

As soon as he had remembered how to breathe he was on his feet, applauding.

Until he remembered it was all on his phone. 

Even then he couldn’t find it in him to feel embarrassed. That had been… amazing. Extraordinary. Sherlock had composed that? For him?

Astonishing.

 

He stared as John closed his eyes in obvious rapturous pleasure at the end of the music.

It had been okay, he supposed. Not really his thing.

 

A knock at the door shook him out of his reverie

“John? Are you all right?”

Mary.

 

“Shit,” he said. “What did you tell her?”

“Nothing,” John said, shrugging helplessly. “How could I tell her about that? It’s too… private.”

He decided not to mention the fact that John had just played the piece on speakerphone in the middle of a crowded pub.

“I mean, I was convinced she was going to find out,” John said. “About the composition, about everything. But somehow the day went past and we drove home and had dinner and talked about the wedding and watched Midsomer Murders and went to bed and-“

“Yeah, I get it,” he said to avoid a rendition of every minute of John’s life. Let’s keep to the interesting drama please. “She didn’t manage to read your mind. What happened with Sherlock?”

“The next day was Tuesday,” said John in a not quite right imitation of Sherlock’s ‘we both know what’s going on here’ look, but then nobody was perfect. “Yesterday. You know what happened yesterday.”

Emma Jason, the reason for all the paperwork. Killed whilst taking a shortcut through some woods between her local tube station and home. Four o’clock in the afternoon, busy road just ten yards in one direction, a playground full of kids and their parents twelve yards in the other, and yet not one person heard a thing. Throw in an obviously personal attack and a victim that hardly seemed to know anyone, and those she did know seemed to consider her a saint, and it had definitely been a call for Sherlock. John had come too of course and, to cut Mary some slack, Greg certainly hadn’t been able to tell that the two of them had been in the middle of an affair involving Italian dinner and violin compositions.

Although he hadn’t known about Anne and the PE teacher either so maybe he wasn’t the best judge when it came to these things.

Jesus, he was supposed to be a detective, wasn’t he? No, stop that, he didn’t need to go back to that place. Concentrate on yesterday. What happened with Sherlock and John? They came to the scene, examined the body, Sherlock yelled at a few unobservant witnesses then broke into Emma’s phone and then-

“The two of you went off on your own after Parsons.”

Jake Parsons, Emma’s landlord, who Greg had later discovered handcuffed to a lamppost with a note from Sherlock attached to his chest. That had added at least another ream of paperwork to the pile.

“Did something happen?”

The guilty look practically told its own story.

 

He would have told Sherlock to call Lestrade rather than just text the location of the unconscious handcuffed Jake Parsons, or to at least wait for the arrival of the police except he was a bit too busy being buckled over with laughter, which, given that he was already out of breath from chasing Parsons, made it hard to speak.

“How do you do this?” he asked when he finally got his breath back. “How do you manage to come up with more and more ridiculous things like this to do?”

Sherlock looked up from where he was rifling through Parsons’ pockets.

“Wouldn’t want you to get bored,” said Sherlock with a smile that he would have found charming if the words hadn’t caused him to double over with laughter again.

“How the hell could I get bored with you?” he said, throwing his arms up at the sheer ridiculousness of the suggestion. “Even when you’re sitting on your arse doing nothing you’re the most interesting thing in the room.”

 

“Which you have to admit is true,” John said, pointing a finger at him. “At least when he’s not being a dick. Sometimes even then.”

“Whatever floats your boat, mate,” he said, holding up his hands in surrender.

He wasn’t the smitten one.

John’s eyes widened and his gaze dropped to the phone still in the middle of the table.

Jesus, he didn’t _know_? Had it seriously not occurred to him that his feelings towards Sherlock might be slightly… stronger than other people’s? No wonder the two of them were completely failing at this.

 

Sherlock turned away, but not before John saw the quick smile.

“Notebook.” Sherlock was looking at Parsons, but the open hand pointed backwards in John’s direction made it clear who the demand was aimed at.

“Why?” he asked cautiously as he pressed his notebook into Sherlock’s hand.

Sherlock didn’t reply, but instead scribbled something down on the paper before ripping the page out of the book. As Sherlock pulled something – a pin – out of his pocket and leaned forward to attach the note to Parsons’ chest, Parsons started to groan. When the handcuff clinked against the lamppost Sherlock scrambled backwards, arms windmilling as he got back to his feet, and grabbed his hand.

“He’s coming to, run!”

Then they were running again, giggling like schoolboys as they dodged pedestrians, weaved through side streets and skirted traffic. He had no idea where they were going or really why they were going. All he knew was that his heart was pumping, his blood was racing and he was following Sherlock.

They stopped abruptly after what seemed like hours or maybe just minutes. God, he was far too out of practice, he could hardly stand with the exhaustion of the running and laughing. He had to cling to Sherlock for support. Maybe he should take up cycling or something.

He turned to Sherlock to tell him that and suddenly realised how close they were, how his arms were practically around Sherlock’s neck and how Sherlock had stopped laughing.

“Sherlock.”

The running made it come out a little breathless.

Something ran along the edge of his cheek and he was so caught up in simply staring at Sherlock it took as moment to realise it was Sherlock’s thumb.

“How can she see you as I do?” Sherlock said, frowning slightly. “No one does. No one sees the obvious.”

“What’s obvious?”

“How amazing you are. How you make the world not boring.”

He swallowed, headily aware of what sort of a compliment that was coming from Sherlock.

“Sherlock-“

“Please, John.” Sherlock was so close the tips of their noses were resting against each other. “Just, please.”

 

Over at the bar someone let out an extra loud guffaw that made them both jump.

Oh yeah, they were in a pub weren’t they? Not an alleyway with Sherlock.

John looked a little dazed, blinking furiously as if he had just woken up. Except he didn’t really want John to wake up. He wanted to know what happened next. Although,

“As far as I see it,” he said, “there are two options. Either you snogged his brains out, let him take you home and pound you through the mattress.” 

John’s eyebrows flew up. 

“In which case I hope you’re here for advice as to how to tell Mary you’re cancelling the wedding. Or you pulled away, told him once and for all that it couldn’t happen, went back home to your beautiful wife-to-be and now you’re worried you’ve hurt Sherlock and want help resurrecting your friendship.”

John winced and looked away. His heart sunk.

“Oh God, what did you do?”

 

John let out a shuddering breath, which Sherlock, so close, seemed to swallow up. Then, as Sherlock began to move down he pushed up, meeting him halfway.

The kiss was so different to their kiss on Saturday. Gentle where that had been forceful. Elegant where that had been precise. Loving where that had been passionate. It was too much.

He pulled away. “Sherlock-“

“No.”

The hand on his cheek moved behind his neck and pulled him in again.

The passion was back, along with the reminder of who he was kissing. God, how could he forget? God, how could he not want? But he couldn’t.

“Sherlock-“ he tried to pull away again.

“Don’t.”

Sherlock tried to pull him in again, but he turned his face away. Undeterred Sherlock began mouthing along his jawline and he couldn’t hold in the moan that escaped him.

“Sherlock, I can’t.”

“Please, John,” Sherlock said between nips and kisses. “ _Please_.”

“Oh god.” 

The pleading in Sherlock’s voice was too much. Bringing his hands up, he pushed Sherlock away.

“I’m sorry.” 

The look on Sherlock’s face was impossible to look at. He turned away.

“I’m so sorry.”

Sherlock said nothing and he couldn’t bear to look back.

“I should go.”

Still nothing. He tried to think of something, anything else to say, but the words were out of reach. So he did the only thing he could; he left.

 

“You are the world’s biggest shit,” he said, resisting the urge to throw something at John.

“I didn’t know what to do!” John said, throwing his hands in the air.

“I’ll tell you what to do. Stop being such a massive arse.”

“Thanks, you’re a great help.”

“I’m going to take a shot in the dark and guess you didn’t say anything to Mary either.”

“She was in bed when I got in.”

He rolled his eyes. Excuses, excuses.

John shook his head. “I just… I don’t know what to do. About Sherlock, about Mary, about any of this whole thing.”

God, what a mess.

He looked longingly at the empty pint glasses before deciding that this really needed as much brain power as he could dredge up from the pits of alcohol.

“Have you spoken to Sherlock since last night?” he asked.

“No,” said John, picking his mobile up from the table and swiping the screen. “But I received this this morning.”

A few more finger swipes and John turned the mobile screen towards him. An email was open on the screen.

 

To: John.Watson@londonhospitals.nhs.net

From: SherlockHolmes@scienceofdeduction.co.uk

Subject: Reasons why John Watson and Sherlock Holmes belong together.

 

1\. I provide fodder for your blog.  
  
2\. Tea made by anyone but you tastes wrong.  
  
3\. I think better when you are listening.  
  
4\. You are a conductor of light, without you my evanescence is severely curtailed.  
  
5\. No one else will ever know as much about you as I do.  
  
6\. You make my pulmonary system speed up in a way I enjoy.  
  
7\. I have observed your pulmonary system speed up when we are in close contact and have deduced you enjoy this as much as I do.  
  
8\. We have a similarly black sense of humour.  
  
9\. We have similar taste in takeaway food  


 

And so on and so on. He scrolled down the list, skim reading, but gave up when he reached one hundred and thirty-nine and the tiny scrollbar was still only halfway down.

Oh god the two of them were both so obnoxiously smitten they should both be frolicking in meadows together surrounded by bunnies or something Disney like that. It was disgusting. Poor Mary.

“He makes some persuasive arguments, I’ll give him that,” he said, passing the phone back,

“He’s,” John tipped his head back and stared at the ceiling for a moment as if the answer to all his problems was written there. “Amazing,” John finally said, sounding pretty cut up about it. “And not going to give up.” John finally descended from his ceiling gazing and gave a grim smile. “I just wish things could have stayed the same. Best friend, girlfriend. Two people I,” the word seemed caught in his throat, “care about the most, all of us together at my wedding. The best day of my life. That was how it was supposed to be.”

As hard as it was to feel sorry for a man who was being fought over by a lovely, beautiful woman and a stunningly intelligent, if a bit weird looking, man, he couldn’t help but feel a twinge of pity. He remembered how destroyed John had been after Sherlock’s death. He had watched as his friend had fallen apart, as the war had come back to haunt him, as the bottom had fallen out of his world. After two years of that didn’t the poor man deserve something good? Some stability.

Except…

“You’ve got to choose, John. You can’t put it off any longer.”

“I know. There’s only three days till the wedding-“

“No, you’ve got to choose today,” he said. “Or at least by tomorrow. Think about it. The wedding is on Saturday, the rehearsal is on Friday. If you choose Sherlock then you need to tell everyone tomorrow so everything can start being cancelled.”

“Are you saying I should pick Sherlock?”

“I’m not making this decision for you. I’m just telling you to make it sooner rather than later.”

He owed Mary that at least.

John’s gaze dropped back to the phone as if trying to read Sherlock’s list even though the screen had dimmed.

He sighed and looked towards the bar, thinking about whether to get another pint.

It took a lot of thought.

“I’m going to get some water,” he said after they had sat in silence for a long while. “You want anything?”

John didn’t reply, didn’t show any sign of hearing him. He decided to get him some water anyway.

The bar was busy and, despite seeming perfectly attentive when he first approached, the barmaid suddenly appeared to lose her sense of hearing when he asked for water and was instantly distracted by other customers whose orders just happened to include something that actually needed to be paid for. After five, “Sorry, I’ll be with you in a sec, I’m just serving this gentleman,”s and the rising temptation to get out his warrant card he finally managed to secure two glasses of water and get back to the table. By that time John was gone.

 

~~~

 

Reasoning that there was nothing sadder in the world than a man sitting alone in a pub drinking water, he quickly downed the two glasses and went home.

He wondered whether John was still thinking about his decision, maybe walking around while he considered.

He wondered what John was going to decide; it would go either way from where he was sitting.

He wondered whether he should have brought some paperwork home, and whether there was a real chance the stack on his desk would breed with itself and crush him in a paper slide as soon as he opened his office door in the morning.

He wondered what Anne and PE teacher were doing tonight.

He decided to stop wondering, before going down that path, and to go to bed.

Actually loo first, then bed.

The sound of his mobile ringing interrupted a particularly vivid dream about a purple paper monster and shocked him awake. It took a few moments of blind groping to grab the phone, get caught up in the charger wire, successfully disengage the phone from the charger and finally bring it to his ear.

“Hello?”

It might have helped if during the fumbling he had pressed accept.

“Hello,” he tried again, after tapping the green on screen button.

“Boss?”

Why the hell was Jones calling him at - he checked the time – nearly one AM, and what could he do to make him regret it apart from put him on more nights which clearly would only come back to haunt him.

“Yes, Jones, what is it?”

“Sorry to wake you, boss.” He would be. “But we’ve had a call from uniform about a suspected domestic abuse case. Girlfriend knocked her boyfriend out.”

“This better have something to do with one of our cases, Jones, or I swear…”

“Er, not really.”

That did it. Now he really was going to have to come up with something horrible and creative like… well maybe he would save the creative thinking for when it wasn’t the middle of the night and he didn’t still had frightened villagers running through his head.

“It’s John Watson, boss.”

What?

“What?”

“He’s in hospital. His girlfriend threw a hairdryer at him and knocked him out. Uniform called us as soon as they found out who it was.”

Guess John had finally told Mary about the stag night then. But in hospital?

“Is he alright?”

“Uniform haven’t seen him yet, said he’s having a scan to check for brain damage.”

Jesus!

“Which hospital? I’ll come over straight away,” he said, struggling out of the covers before a thought struck him.

Oh Christ, what was Sherlock going to do when he found out?

“Is Sherlock there?

“UCH and not yet,” said Jones. “That’s part of the reason they called us. They want someone who can keep a handle on Holmes.”

And that was meant to be him? Ha!

Still, he had to go and see that John was alright. Should he have offered to be there when John spoke to Mary? But who could have predicted gentle Mary would knock John out with a hairdryer? He didn’t know a hairdryer could do that much damage.

Dear god, please let the hairdryer not have done that much damage.

“Thanks for letting me know. Tell uniform I’m on my way.”

He hung up and grabbed the first set of clothes he could find in his dresser.

The car ride was agonising and even with the low amount of traffic he was tempted to put on his lights. Only the fear of adding to that paperwork mountain stopped him. He could hardly help John if he was crushed to death.

Oh god, John.

He burst his way into the waiting room and immediately spotted the two officers standing by the doors to the main A&E talking together. Just as he strode towards them to identify himself he was suddenly intercepted by Mary.

“Greg! Oh thank god!”

She looked frantic. Her normally perfectly coifed hair was a mess, the makeup around her eyes was smudged and the nails on the hand that had grabbed his arm looked as though they had been picked at or possibly even chewed.

“They won’t let me see John,” she said, her breath hitching. “They won’t even tell me how he is.”

He looked back towards the officers who were watching him warily. One of them had a hand hovering near a radio as if ready to call for backup at any moment.

“It’s ok,” he said, peeling Mary’s hand off his arm. “I’ll sort this out.”

“I just need to know he’s ok,” she said, backing up as he pushed.

“I’ll find out.”

Approaching the officers, he reached into his jacket, causing one of them to tighten his grip on the radio. It loosened, however, when he pulled out his badge and showed it, saying,

“DI Lestrade, please take me to Doctor Watson immediately.”

“He’s still-“

“Immediately, Cconstable,” he said, giving the slightest gesture towards where Mary was standing by, watching.

The two officers exchanged looks, then the less twitchy one nodded.

The twitchy one finally took his hand away from the radio and went over to the receptionist. A moment later there was a buzz and the constable returned and took him through to the main A&E, leaving his colleague behind.

“Thank you, PC…”

“Dunn, sir.”

“Thank you PC Dunn. What can you tell me about the condition of Doctor Watson?”

“We’re waiting for him to return from a CT scan, sir,” said Dunn. “We haven’t been able to speak to him yet, but we understand he was conscious when they took him up. He was out of it when he first arrived here. Doctor wanted to check for brain damage and said there was concussion at least.”

His hand automatically went to his mouth at the suggestion of brain damage. God, no.

“Do you know what happened?”

Dunn pulled out his notebook and flicked to one of the less crinkled pages.

“Woman out there is Mary Morstan. Do you know her?”

“Yes, I’m invited to their wedding.”

Oh god, now he was doing Sherlock’s ‘Why am I surrounded by idiots’ voice. It was contagious.

“Oh,” said Dunn looking thrown. “Well, um.” Dunn looked back down at the notebook. “She called triple nines at just after eleven PM asking for an ambulance. Forty year old male, knocked unconscious, breathing normally.” Dunn flipped over a page. “When the operator asked if she had seen what had happened, she replied that she had thrown a hairdryer at him, but that she hadn’t meant to hurt him. Once the paramedics arrived, she told them the same story. They had gotten into an argument, she had thrown the hairdryer at him, she was very sorry and hadn’t meant to hurt him. It was the paramedics who called us. I’ve got both their contact details if you need them,” Dunn proffered the notebook.

He quickly shook his head.

Dunn continued. “Paramedic said that in her experience the head wound and condition of the patient were not symptomatic of an accidental blow, but could only have been caused by a throw of great strength and acute accuracy. It was her belief that this was a deliberate assault, not an accident. Doctor Watson was still unconscious when we arrived, so we were unable to ascertain whether he wishes to press charges. But when we found out his name we called your department. We’ve, er, all heard about Sherlock Holmes, sir.”

Throw of great strength and acute accuracy. What had John told her to make her do that? No, scratch that, nothing John could have said was worth that. Not if there was a risk of permanent brain damage.

“Has anyone called Sherlock?” he asked.

“No, sir,” said Dunn. “Doctor Watson’s emergency medical contact is listed as Mary Morstan, but since we’re here, the staff was dealing with us instead. Still,” Dunn looked around cautiously, “you hear all kinds of stuff about Holmes, don’t you? About how he’s got half the homeless people in the city working for him. He rose from the dead; I wouldn’t be surprised if he showed up any second. And I doubt he would be happy.”

Happy was definitely not the word.

“If it helps, I’m fairly sure he’s not actually psychic,” he said. “But we will have to tell him eventually.”

Especially, as he suspected, John would be in need of somewhere to stay pretty soon.

He looked towards the busy nurses bustling by and resisted the urge to grab one and demand they tell him once and for all whether John was alright or not. Instead, he merely gestured back towards the waiting area with his hand.

“Shall we?”

After all, how busy could a CT scanner be at this hour on a Thursday morning?

It was twenty minutes before someone came to get them. Twenty minutes of Mary’s “It was an accident, I would never hurt him,”, “I was just so angry,” and of course the old classic and apparent theme for that evening, “It just sort of happened.”

Finally the receptionist called for the people here for John Watson. Mary jumped up immediately and had to be put off by PC Dunn’s colleague – damn, he should have checked what his name was, so unprofessional – while he and PC Dunn followed the receptionist. She told them John had been transferred to the Acute Medical Unit and dropped them off at a curtained bay saying,

“The doctor will be along momentarily.”

Asking PC Dunn to wait outside, he pulled the curtain just far enough aside to step through then closed it firmly behind him.

John was sitting up in the hospital bed – thank god – with a stark white bandage in the middle of his forehead.

God, what a shot. John couldn’t have even had time to duck.

“Greg?” John blinked at him. “What are you doing here?”

“Jesus, John, you’ve been through the wars.”

He winced; perhaps not the best thing to say to an Afghanistan veteran.

“I know that,” said John, brow furrowed.

“There are two officers outside waiting to see if you want to press charges against Mary.”

This seemed to take a moment to set in.

“What? Why?”

There was a plastic chair against the wall. He pulled it up to the bed and took a seat.

“John, why don’t you tell me what happened.”

Again there was a pause, this time just long enough for him to look around for that damn doctor to come and explain what was obviously wrong.

“I told her about Sherlock,” John said in a rush, as if it had only just come back to him. “I told her about my stag night and the morning after, and I… and what I’ve been thinking, and um… I said I thought we should put off the wedding.” John frowned again. “No, wait, I… No, yes, I said we shouldn’t get married on Saturday because I needed to think it through. And she asked why she would want to marry someone in love with his best friend…”

John trailed off, blinking furiously.

“John?” he said, after a long silence.

For crying out loud, where was that doctor?

“I’m in love with Sherlock,” John said, sounding puzzled by the whole thing.

Which was completely understandable in his view. Sherlock?

“My head hurts.”

“Yeah, love’ll do that to you.”

“No, I mean, that was when she threw the hairdryer at me,” John said. “When I said I was in love with Sherlock.”

“Oh.”

Love would do that to you as well.

No, that was nonsense.

“So, what are you going to do?”

In the long moment John looked blankly at him, he realised that as much as this was John’s decision to make, now was perhaps not the best time for him to make it.

“I’m going to love Sherlock.”

Here was his good friend with a bad head injury and he couldn’t stop a grin. Not good, as Sherlock would say.

No, let’s face it, if Sherlock was here and didn’t grin at that statement – and didn’t immediately throw himself at John – then he didn’t deserve John.

“You do that, mate,” he said, as John frowned as if he hadn’t meant to say that.

“Right then.” The curtain was swept aside and a young man – no, scratch that, a man who was at least in his thirties but doing everything in his power to look young including some very unconvincing blond highlights - entered holding a clipboard that held all his attention. “Doctor Watson,” finally the doctor looked up, “and…”

“DI Lestrade,” he said, pulling out his ID.

“Oh, yes,” the doctor looked back down at the notes. “Well, I’ve got Doctor Watson’s results here and I really need to talk to a friend or family member. Is there anyone we can contact apart from the, er,” the doctor grimaced slightly, “girlfriend.”

Professionalism at its best.

“I’m his friend,” he said.

“And I am actually here,” John snapped.

“Right, yes,” the doctor glanced briefly upwards again before returning to the clipboard. “Well we’ve had the results back from your CT scan, Doctor Watson and it’s all clear.”

Thank god.

“At the moment you have a bad case of concussion and we do have some concern about your reactions as well as the amount of time you were unconscious so we would like to keep you in overnight.”

John’s huff of disapproval was a little too delayed, rather supporting the doctor’s argument.

“You can collect him in the morning,” the doctor said, finally raising his head from the notes. “Can I speak to you about that?” the doctor jabbed the clipboard in the direction of the curtain opening.

“Of course,” he said, trying to give John a smile that said they were just going to go outside and out of John’s earshot to talk about taxis and parking spots, nothing about John or Mary at all.

He doubted it was a very convincing smile but the blank look John gave him suggested it was lost on John anyway at the moment.

He followed the doctor out and pulled the curtain shut behind him. The doctor got straight down to business.

“Do we need to post a security guard?”

He shook his head immediately. “No, it’ll be fine.”

He was fairly confident if he told Mary to go home she would. Sherlock on the other hand was likely to sneak in shortly after he called him. Not having a guard to get in Sherlock’s way would probably make all their lives easier. He really needed to call Sherlock. And soon.

“Ok, cool.”

Oh god, how did this man not know he was kidding no one?

“So, er, why did she hit him?”

“He told her he had slept with his best man a week before their wedding.”

Doctor quarter-life crisis’ eyebrows flew up so fast Greg was afraid they would dislodge some of the highlights.

“Right. How about we don’t tell the female staff that. They might get a bit… sensitive.”

A quarter-life crisis dickhead. Great, just fabulous.

“Although if you want my advice.”

Oh yes, shower us with your decades of wisdom.

“The kind of woman who throws a hairdryer hard enough to knock a guy out is the kind of woman who might punish a guy by burning all his stuff. You might want to retrieve some of your mate’s things before she gets the chance.”

He got the distinct impression the dickhead really did have experience with this sort of thing. Although, actually, there might be some logic there.

He thanked the doctor, asked PC Dunn, who was still waiting nearby, to keep Mary in the waiting room, asked a nurse for the nearest exit that wasn’t through the waiting room, and headed out the door, pulling out his phone as he did.

It took three attempts to get Sherlock to answer, by which point he was already in his car.

“What is it?”

Charming as always. What did John see in him?

“I need you to meet me at John and Mary’s house immediately.”

“What’s happened to John?”

Leaping ahead as usual.

“You’ll find out if you meet me at John and Mary’s house as soon as possible. It’s urgent, you need to be there.”

Sherlock hung up without another word. He could only hope that Sherlock would do as he said rather than try to find out about John through other channels.

Once he reached John and Mary’s house those hopes were renewed when he found the front door lock had been picked.

One day he was going to have to arrest Sherlock for that.

Speaking of the lanky git, he was almost bowled over as Sherlock came storming down the stairs talking on a mobile.

“Has a John Watson been admitted there in the last few hours?”

Fuck, Sherlock was calling the hospital. How did he figure it out so quickly?

He snatched the mobile from Sherlock’s hands.

“Sorry,” he said, “false alarm.”

Hanging up, he turned to Sherlock only to find himself pushed up against the wall.

“Where is he?”

“Sherlock, calm down.”

“You called me to John’s house and I find blood on the carpet and on a hairdryer in the bedroom with no other signs of struggle. Obviously John is injured, most likely caused by Mary in a fit of pique, likely due to John telling Mary about the two of us, all of which you clearly know about. So tell me now. Where. Is. John?”

“UCH.” He had to quickly grab Sherlock to stop the idiot from making a break for it and nearly got his hand snapped off in the process. “Stop it, Sherlock, I’ll take you there myself. I just need you to do him a favour first, alright?”

Sherlock backed up, looking like a wild animal poised between fight and flight.

“What kind of favour?”

“Yes, Mary threw a hairdryer at him.”

Sherlock’s nose immediately wrinkled up in something approaching a snarl. 

“And yes, it was because he was cheating on her with you, you bastard.” 

The snarl disappeared and was replaced with an imperious look, albeit still an angry one. 

“But he’s fine. He’s absolutely fine. But John might not want to live here for a bit. Mary might not want it either. So we need to get some of John’s things back to your place. Otherwise they might end up out on the front step – which Mary would be fully justified in doing, by the way.”

The anger melted away and the imperious look, with its straight back and high chin, collapsed before his eyes. Instead, Sherlock leaned back, his eyes wide and his mouth open a little. He looked like a child who had been told he was going to Disneyland for his birthday and was waiting for confirmation that this could possibly be true.

“You didn’t think he would pick you,” he realised.

Sherlock dropped his gaze and shuffled his feet. “It seemed an unlikely possibility.”

“He’s potty about you, and if you had made your mind up three years ago he probably wouldn’t be in hospital with concussion right now.”

Sherlock opened his mouth to reply, but couldn’t seem to find the words. Sherlock Holmes, speechless. Was it a blue moon tonight or were the pigs just in flight?

“Now come on, you’ll have a better idea than me about what’s John’s or not. Let’s get packed up.”

When he had thought up this plan he had only envisaged grabbing a few essentials for John along with anything that was particularly precious or breakable. Sherlock, however, seemed to be of the impression that they were moving John out. It took a lot of persuading to get Sherlock to see that that wasn’t really a decision either of them could make for John – and Mary of course – but even then Sherlock stalked around with a surly frown as if he didn’t really see what the problem was. He managed to stop Sherlock at a maximum of two bags, as well as John’s laptop, and, after a quick stop at Baker Street to drop things off, they headed to the hospital.

Sherlock fidgeted the entire car journey, bouncing his heels and drumming his fingers. The car had barely stopped before he jumped out and stormed off into the distance leaving Greg shouting after him while pulling on the handbrake.

Greg had to run to catch up, shouting desperately to get Sherlock to avoid the A&E waiting room. The last thing they needed was a clash between Sherlock and Mary.

He might as well have saved his breath as Sherlock avoided A&E completely and instead went through the main entrance. Following, he was just in time to see Sherlock pull out a staff card, swipe it, and unlock a door they clearly were not meant to be going through.

It was far too early in the morning to argue, so he just fell into step behind Sherlock as they weaved through corridors and more locked doors until finally arriving at the AMU.

Sherlock didn’t stop at reception, but instead quickly glanced at the whiteboard bed list before shooting off like an arrow directly towards John’s bed. At which point he decided it was probably best to give them a moment.

Back in the A&E waiting room, Mary was still there with her head in her hands, while PC Dunn and his colleague sitting nearby looking bored. Mary jumped up as soon as she saw him, but he spoke over her to dismiss the two constables saying he would take care of things from this point onwards. They looked so relieved to be finally getting out of there he was almost convinced Dunn was going to hug him. Thankfully Dunn managed to resist, and he was left alone with Mary.

“Greg, what the hell is going on?”

“John’s fine,” he said.

She let out a long breath and closed her eyes. “Oh thank god.”

“His CT scan came back clear, but they’re keeping him in just in case.”

“Just in case his demented fiancée throws another hairdryer at him you mean?” she said looking back at him with a rueful smile. It faded in an instant. “Oh my god, you actually mean that. You know I would never harm him. You know that.”

“Yeah,” he said, “well, except you have.”

“It was an accident,” she said. “I never meant to hurt him. I just threw it before I could really think.”

Except she had thrown it with the sort of pinpoint accuracy he doubted a woman like Mary could manage without taking plenty of time to aim first.

“He’s not pressing charges, is he?”

“He’s not really in a state to make that kind of decision right now. But I will ask him again in the morning.”

Although he doubted John would.

“He won’t,” she said. “If you would just let me see him we could sort this all out right now.”

“He needs to rest, Mary,” he said with a sigh. “And so do you. I do think the two of you need to talk, but maybe give it a couple of days.”

“A couple of days!” her shriek attracted the attention of the entire waiting room and set a previously sleeping baby screaming, much to the audible displeasure of his or her grumpy looking father. “We’re getting married on Saturday!”

“Except a few hours ago you weren’t so keen on the idea.”

Her eyes narrowed and her next words were hissed through nearly gritted teeth. “You knew. You knew about him and Sherlock.”

“I only found out today,” he said, holding his hands out as a shield and surreptitiously checking there was nothing nearby she could knock him out with. “Which means I know that you have every reason to be angry. I’ve been where you are, remember?”

Although he had never thrown anything. He, the idiot that he was, had instead hugged his wife as she tearfully confessed to an affair and gently consoled her through the decision that she was going to kick him out. He had only thrown things after he had moved out and even then only at the wall. The whisky stain was still there to this day.

“You’re tired and you’re angry and part of you wants to forget it ever happened and pretend everything was like it was when you first met and it was all sunshine and lollipops. And part of you wants to chuck them to the kerb and, and throw hairdryers at both of their heads. And maybe there’s another part that wants to take an entire bottle of vodka to bed along with whisky and wine and whatever else you’ve got in your cupboard that her parents brought last time they came for dinner and you were still playing the happy couple. And all of these parts are clamouring for your attention right now, and I know it’s going to be hard, but you’ve got to ignore all of them. Because if you don’t, then three years down the line you’re going to hate yourself for giving in to… yourself a heck of a lot more than you’re going to hate her- him.” He took a deep breath. “What you’ve got to do is go to bed and in the morning it’ll be another day.”

She stared at him, and for a horror filled moment he thought she was going to cry. But instead she swallowed, nodded, stooped to pick up her handbag and walked towards the door. She paused after a couple of steps and turned back.

“Tell him,” she said. “Tell him I’m sorry.”

“I will,” he said.

“And if you see Sherlock, tell him he’s a complete bastard.”

“I’ll do that as well.”

Nodding again she turned and walked out the waiting room.

He let out a long breath and scrubbed his hand over his face.

He really needed to go to bed. But first…

He asked the receptionist to let him back in to check on Sherlock and John.

It seemed Sherlock had been so intent on reaching John’s side that he hadn’t bothered to close the curtain behind him. Sherlock was perched in the chair next to John’s bed, but was leaning forward so far he might not have bothered with it. He was clutching one of John’s hands with both of his own and holding it close to his heart. Their heads were leaning towards each other as if sharing secrets no one else would ever know. Sherlock was staring down at John as if trying to figure out exactly how every molecule of John’s body worked. John was smiling at Sherlock in a fond, if a bit dazed way.

He only realised he had been frozen to the spot staring at the two of them when a nurse walked in front of his line of sight and interrupted his reverie with a quiet,

“Aw.”

He blinked furiously, shook away his sleep and decided to call it a night. He’d check on the two of them in the morning. That said, he was fairly certain they could manage from this point onwards and always. Somehow.


End file.
